by Jackson Pearce
ages: 15+
First sentence: “When I said it, I didn’t mean it.”
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Two things first: I still really like Jackson Pearce’s writing. And I’m completely the wrong audience for this.

Because from the get-go, the premise — a girl, who has made promises to her mom on her death bed, doesn’t want to make a promise of “purity” to her father (at a Princess Ball) and so sets out to have sex in the five weeks before the dance in order to create a loophole — screamed idiotic to me. SCREAMED it.

I kept wanting to shake Shelby: talk. to. your. dad. Okay, sure, I know that most teenagers don’t actually talk to their parents, unlike mine, but really: communication is so underrated. I know the whole point of the book was so that Shelby would learn to Love, and to Understand her father, and there was bumbling and missteps along the way. In no way does this book make sex out to be all that (and then some), but even that didn’t save the book for me.

Because, in so many ways, I felt this was Done. Do we really need another book like this? I wanted Pearce to do something new, something fresh, and I feel like we got a Cliff Notes version of a Sarah Dessen book, which really disappointed me.

That’s not to say people won’t like this one. It’s just not my cup o’ tea.